HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

https://asiatimes.com/2021/06/hk-media-erase-their-archives-amid-rising-arrests/

by tomohawk • 5 years ago

384 268 5 years ago

The CCP isn't going to stop with Hong Kong. The US needs to get its act together, stop flagellating itself about race, and present a viable opposition before it's too late.

seibelj2• 5 years ago

There is an epic tv show to be made about underground freedom fighters in HK and what they do to subvert the gestapo. Just like there is a genre now of how different groups tried to subvert the nazis, it’s pretty clear that China is the modern-day fascist state, where disagreeing with the official party line risks your career and possibly your freedom. The only permitted disagreement is whisper-networks, and the moment any speech rises above low-level chatter it’s subdued with the iron fist. Interesting times. Hard to believe in 2021 over a billion people live like this, so sad.

labster• 5 years ago

Disney won’t even make gay characters in their animated films, so they can make lots of China dollars. So good luck finding funding for your TV show to deeply hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.

seibelj2• 5 years ago

I'm thinking in terms of 50+ years. The optimist in me thinks freedom-oriented people will win - eventually. But historically speaking the US is an anomaly, and the older I get the more impressed I am that people in the 1700's wrote the US constitution, considering every few decades serious threats to its core ideals erupt but are ultimately quashed.

What's even more crazy is 2 years ago saying the comment I did about China would have made me worried about my tech career in America. But now, people who previously supported and defended China need to back-pedal lest they are called out for supporting human rights abuses in the name of profit. It reinforces my belief that you should have principles that you stick with in all situations.

dillondoyle5• 5 years ago

Disney+ also got rid of Love Victor. now on Hulu we get at least some semblance of normative sexuality of queer people.

though your comment sounds more like a threat, maybe just the standard CCP tinged thread though lol

elevenoh4• 5 years ago

So good luck finding funding for your TV show to deeply hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.

'to deeply hurt the feelings of Chinese people'... why would you say that?

And why would you jump into assuming malice?

This is what I see 10 year olds do when cranky.

strogonoff7• 5 years ago

Apple TV+ is claimed to have a policy to never do two things: hardcore nudity, and China.

Report[0] by CBS gives hope that the industry is waking up. HBO announced a series about COVID in which they claim to not go soft on anyone, including the Chinese government.

However, even presuming there is a channel that would be willing to air or stream the show, a series about HK freedom fight would be very hard to shoot in a realistic fashion. If it is to be released while the fight is ongoing, exposing actual people or even techniques that CCP doesn’t know about could very tangibly cost lives. Tangentially, such a show would give more ammunition for CCP’s propaganda that it’s the interference of the West that is causing the unrest (as opposed to Hongkongers themselves wanting freedom). The only way to shoot on location while the events are unfolding is if there’s solid trust between the participants and the crew that release will not happen in a way that would put individual fighters or the movement in even more of a jeopardy than there’s already. A mere contract is unlikely to be enough of a guarantee, given who they’re dealing with.

There is a film about HK protests (banned in China, of course), but it mostly concerned itself with what was happening visibly on the streets.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgeRQkE3ED0

elevenoh4• 5 years ago

I'm wondering why this was downvoted.

It certainly is a nightmare to think a billion people live under such a government.

wearehongkonger• 5 years ago

HongKonger here. We all know they are bullshitting but we just can't do anything. They got guns, the law or even backed by the court (yeah new judges post 1997 were appointed by the Chief Executive). People who did tried to resist are arrested, beaten or maybe even killed (of course no one is dead according to the official records).

wyager• 5 years ago

I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”.

I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective.

This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerable to bad PR, so generating a bunch of sympathetic imagery (photos of student protestors getting gassed or whatever) might not actually be useful in swaying political outcomes.

The second mistake is assuming that most (putatively) peaceful protests in the western world are actually the impetus for political change, and not just part of a legitimization strategy for political changes that were already in development before the protest started.

gameshot911• 5 years ago

Thank you for your perspective.

an_opabinia• 5 years ago

the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective.

I understand you are making a stylized appeal for liberal political change via violence. China's leadership has peaks and troughs of liberalism, and violence there, in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran and in many other places around the world was followed more often by a hardening, not a softening, of daily life.

Violence in Hong Kong would delay liberalization and usher a vicious and oppressive crackdown.

legitimization strategy for political changes that were already in development before the protest started.

Here you appear to know that the real strategy is waiting. Eventually, Xi will die, and it's more likely than not that his successors will liberalize.

JumpCrisscross• 5 years ago

Eventually, Xi will die, and it's more likely than not that his successors will liberalize

It is more likely there will be a contest for power.

It could become violent, though that is unlikely. In that event, I see no reason to ensure like-minded Chinese are sufficiently armed, or at the very least informed. China's path changed when Xi installed himself as dictator for life. It's foolish to ignore that seismic shift.

bhawks3• 5 years ago

Here you appear to know that the real strategy is waiting. Eventually, Xi will die, and it's more likely than not that his successors will liberalize.

What leads you to think this will be the case?

The west has been trying to spread liberal democracy for over the past 100 years. It is successful in some places, but not in others. There doesn't seem to be magic formula, and as technology disrupts human interactions it feels like existing liberal democracies are at risk.

I want to share your optimism. Orwell's vision of the future being a boot stomping on a person's head forever feels a little too close to being a reality.

I don't think passively waiting for more benevolent masters is a winning strategy.

AussieWog932• 5 years ago

Eventually, Xi will die, and it's more likely than not that his successors will liberalize.

Based on what evidence?

npunt• 5 years ago

I'm not actually sure if you polled westerns that they would assume protests alone are the impetus for change, this may be a straw man.

A more generous line of thinking would be 'do peaceful protests help bring about change?', which many in the west would probably agree to, and many in HK probably not. And they'd both be right - peaceful protest likely works better in certain contexts (democracies) than others (authoritarian regimes).

ILMostro72• 5 years ago

How and why do authoritarian regimes get toppled? Ultimately, capturing hearts and minds of people throigh peaceful protests is beneficial. The question is not whether protests always work directly and timely even. Wheteher or not special interests play a role, the result is easier reached when there's at least a larger audience that may become allied or organized better. To me, it's a fallacy to say that on the one hand ideology or protesting even doesn't play a part in political change when they can be greatly exploited by special interests or governments to gain power or better control and order.

samirillian• 5 years ago

I think both of these points hold, in their own way, in the Western world. As Guy Debord writes in The Society of the Spectacle:

[The Spectacle] defines the program of the ruling class and presides over its formation, just as it presents pseudo-goods to be coveted, it offers false models of revolution to local revolutionaries.

Or as Zizek once said (in paraphrase): It's not Jihad vs. McWorld, it's McJihad vs. McWorld.

Do you think that the West exported this spectacle-based theory of change?

skissane4• 5 years ago

Or as Zizek once said (in paraphrase): It's not Jihad vs. McWorld, it's McJihad vs. McWorld.

"Jihad and McWorld are two sides of the same coin. Jihad is already McJihad" https://www.lacan.com/zizekslovenia.htm

xxpor2• 5 years ago

The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerable to bad PR,

I mean we're talking about the same government on the bad side of the Tank Man photo. I think that's kind of obvious.

The difference is in HK I don't think people were anticipating China to completely break the Basic Law and the handover agreement. They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly.

tablespoon9• 5 years ago

They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly.

I don't think it's ever been correct to say the HK government was elected. It had some elected elements, but they were never in the majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Council_of_Hong_Ko....

IIRC, one of the five protest demands was for a fully elected government.

lions_share• 5 years ago

Not to discount China's horrible authoritarianism in Hong Kong or elsewhere, but the tank man photo is a selective propaganda edit. Watch the whole video (as captured by CNN):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeFzeNAHEhU

bawolff• 5 years ago

But its also not nothing, otherwise they wouldn't be so sensitive on the subject.

baybal24• 5 years ago

They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly.

HK government was never elected. Beijing was always pulling strings from behind

karmasimida3• 5 years ago

They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly

This wasn't case in later stages of the protest, or even early stages. The protestors were gambling against Beijing in the first place, since they clearly didn't trust the local governance nor its ability to meet their demands. And it kinda made it obvious for the latter stage of the protest, that the attack was focus on CCP directly.

rorykoehler• 5 years ago

Over 1 million marched against the 2nd Gulf war in London and it was pointless. Anyone who was paying attention knew the wmd evidence was most likely fabricated. It's the same all over the world.

puppymaster• 5 years ago

Supposedly, there were even handbooks on how to crush these protests. Look at Belarus, Myanmar and Iran. So far the oppressors are winning.

mc32• 5 years ago

It's almost tautological but "nice" oppressors are not going to win. They will be "taken advantage of" The opposition will duly detect the weakness and attack it. That's just the way it is and these regimes know that.

If you're in the oppression business you have to be a bad one.

We all wish there weren't oppressive regimes, but there are.

est4• 5 years ago

Hong Kong’s Police Violence Is Stamped ‘Made in U.K.’

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/18/hong-kongs-police-viole...

Bonus:

the techniques were on full display in British police violence against miners during the 1984-1985 strike

xwolfi• 5 years ago

But violent protests made it worse. The gov removed the extradition law at first but we gave them the opportunity to do worse to restore order and Im forced to back it because I prefer the national security law and some order than no law and no order which it was starting to look like...

However you re so very right: protests movements in the west are barely responsible for change. What s responsible for change is slow and long discussion among the population, progressive education, love of the debate rather than pursuit of efficiency, and in general the acceptance we re all part of the nation, not just a minority group.

When most chinese will see us as them and we ll see them as us, then it ll get better. Until then, we cant even start a debate: we're trators, they're invaders.

fieryscribe• 5 years ago

No, the government did not remove the extradition law until September 2019, after proposing it in February 2019.

By then, many Hong Kongers had been protesting, arrested, beaten and worse. The reason we Hong Kongers did not and have not stopped is because there has been no justice for them.

That's the principle behind 5 demands, not 1 less.

bakatubas2• 5 years ago

All forms of government no matter how big or small are fcorrupt. That’s how it works—they/them who bends the will of the masses wins. Either that’s done by manipulating folks into believing the next candidate will “take their pain away”, or by inflicting pain for non-compliance. Or they change the rules: voter suppression, censorship, etc and pretend they “won the election.” Or they just murder the opposition and blame it on Santa Claus.

TeeMassive2• 5 years ago

I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective.

It's not fallacious. It has worked in the past and continue to work even to this day. Peaceful protests are proven to work more than violence; when they are allowed in the first place. Violet uprisings rarely lead to positive change and mostly end up in either worse conditions or disaster.

Most Western governance are inheritors of violent revolutions of some sort, which people tend to be aware of but take for granted. The US has made it a point to elevate the right to bear arms as a natural right. The UK on the other hand arrest people for tweets. HK never had guns to begin with.

naniwaduni2• 5 years ago

Peaceful protests are proven to work more than violence;

Are they? Remember, a successful violent "protest" is often just retroactively called by a different name, like "revolution" or "coup d'état", it's not as if they're fundamentally different things. How do you compare those to successful peaceful protests?

vmception2• 5 years ago

There is a Cambridge University Press / APSA study about the United States that shows populist swelling or the popular vote rarely results in any legislative change that matches the sentiment, and legislative changes come from well funded special interests that were already there. It is either purely coincidence when those changes match what the protesters want because special interests became interests, or were already interested.

You can see the desperation in trying to find an exception to this, given how much energy would be expended by protestors and those bound by the popular vote, so the we can at least concede - for their sake - that they may have gotten the attention of special interests sometimes, with one influencing the other.

I think the more efficient use of energy would be to identify the most effective special interest groups and capture them.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

dillondoyle5• 5 years ago

cool article. really long I skimmed it so far. seems focused on comparing economic elite/interest groups to common population, which would skew the policy measured to tangible economic/business outcomes?

My first thought to your comment was an opposing example of gay rights. Sure gay marriage was SCOTUS but it first changed as policy at the state level. politicians changed because it became popular enough and strong voice in media (remember obama was against marriage equality amongst other things at first). We're now seeing this struggle with Trans rights. Where it's >52% popular you see equality legislation, where it's a good wedge issue for Republicans they act against (e.g. DeSantis is running for president on the backs of attacking children..)

Civil Rights Act comes to mind too and interesting in that it had such strong opposition, interesting question of what are special interests if you expand beyond 'economic and business elite.' NAACP et al were very powerful.

Marijuana & decriminalization is another quick thought, though that's a bit more cloudy especially with later states with a more established business interest group. But I worked on the original campaign here in CO and our budget was pretty tiny...

bosswipe4• 5 years ago

Yes, protests are the impotent desperate cry of the unheard. I love of the free because, no matter how much corruption, we will not lose that voice of last resort. Millions of us are willing to fight to the death to preserve it.

rantwasp• 5 years ago

i like the French approach. whenever shit does not work they start building a guillotine: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6477953/Yellow-Vest...

It's a very powerful symbol that if things don't work out violence is on the table and people are going to be held accountable. For those who know a little French history, you know that those French people don't fuck around.

ceilingcorner3• 5 years ago

The French Revolution was mostly a tale of radical actors taking control of the government and then using it to violently get rid of competitors.

Absolutely nothing to do with "the people" holding "government" accountable.

nine_k2• 5 years ago

I remember a good thought experiment. Gandhi's peaceful protests were successful because they impressed the British public via free press, and the public opinion affected the British government.

Now imagine that instead of post-war British, the colonial regime were held by their contemporary Stalin. How much would a peaceful protest achieve?

lotsofpulp• 5 years ago

It's obviously multifactorial, and I do not diminish Gandhi's efforts, but it would be hard to ignore Britain's diminished capabilities after WW2 as having a role in Britain letting go of India.

They simply had no capacity to control a country like India on the other side of the world in their state at the end of WW2, so might as well save as much face while they can.

pydry• 5 years ago

There were also violent protests in India.

It does seem like opposing nonviolent and violent factions who reject each other works better than just one.

Northern Ireland, Malcolm X/MLK, etc.

blast• 5 years ago

Question to wyager or anyone else about that second point: what are some examples of political changes that people think were caused by protests, but in reality were already in development before the protest started? Also, who are the best-known advocates for this idea? If the answer is "I, wyager, came up with it", that's totally fine, I'm just curious if the concept has an interesting history.

pas• 5 years ago

It's hard to untangle causality for these complex society-wide changes.

It's hard to organize a protest if there's not already a societal development for that cause.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/13/does-reality-drive-str...

There's also the dynamic systems viewpoint: between two "attractor states" the tipping point sits on a locally almost flat region. So a transition from one "stable" potential well to an other goes through these confusing no one's lands. Sure, the speed of transition is unknown, and obviously depends on a lot of things like how strong the attractors are (how deep the wells are), and how strong is the societal push - to push society uphill.

But just as there are no protests in North Korea, there is no need to protest for free speech in the US. (That's a crude analogy, yes. I know that free speech is a hot topic nowadays, but the point I'd like to make is that the "political speech against the state is protected by the state" is absolutely unquestioned, the debate is about how tolerant folks ought to be of racists/homophobes/xenophobes.) And between these two extremes there's a lot of countries. And somewhere in the middle it seems that protests happen, but it doesn't matter. (Eg. in Russia. Protests happen, but Putin is still king. Similarly in China [0] ... but in both cases it seems that the authoritarianism is getting stronger. But we don't know what society thinks. Are they getting completely brainwashed, like in NK? [1] In Russia and Belarus people seem to be aware that it could be better, but the current power structure is very efficient in crushing opposition, so people instead drink a lot and die early.)

[0] https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/college-merger-protes...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9rLqYXTaFI&t=6m40s

saiya-jin• 5 years ago

Possibly Ghandi and India's independence? I would expect if British were still a major global force after WWII and were willing to project it, there would have to be a (successful) regular war for independence.

This can be probably applied on a lot of other former colonies.

Also, former Czechoslovakia in 1989 - the loss of communism. A lot of people back there think mass peaceful protests finished the era. But the fact is, the army declared 100% support of ruling communist party, and they would go with tanks to major cities if ordered and crushed the crowds. After shooting would start, there wouldn't be protests anymore, possibly civil war but highly asymmetric since civilians were not largely armed).

The reality is, eastern bloc was disintegrating due to weakening Soviet influence and its own incoming dissolution. This was in place for last 5 years and top folks knew it (albeit news blocked it all for common citizens to keep things quiet). Once the puppets lost the puppeteer, they didn't feel so confident (which is great, no need for another Yugoslavia back home).

bosswipe4• 5 years ago

Your two points are only true when there is no democracy.

mrd3v0• 5 years ago

A little bit off-topic, but it's quite interesting how the name of the law and the intentions behind it is quite the same as in Egypt. Both were installed to actively seize means of opposition media and capture any persons involved for an indefinite period of time. For more context on the Egyptian side, it was the effective law of land during the nearly 30-year tenure of former dictator Hosni Mubarak and then got reinstated after another Coup d'etat by current dictator El-Sisi.

GordonS6• 5 years ago

fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective.

Haha, as a westerner, I believe peaceful protest is invariably futile.

Take the 2003 protests against the Iraq war for example - 3 million protested in Rome, 1.5 million in Madrid, 1 million in London, and millions more across the west. What happened? They went to war based on lies anyway. It's always the same.

Dah00n9• 5 years ago

Protests are a legal part of the system as a blow-off valve to let average citizens get rid of their rage. It's there to keep the status quo. It makes no difference without force behind it. As long as the opposing view doesn't feel endangered it is working for them and against the average citizen. As soon as it makes a difference it is no longer protests but a rebellion, which most who will protest doesn't have the stomach for.

BBC-vs-neolibs• 5 years ago

As I remember it, the protests were incredibly downplayed or ignored in the media, in ways I think would be impossible now.

Cellphone footage of the protests would emerge now. I don't know if this would have changed anything, but I often wonder.

I felt alone and only later learned there had been large protests basically everywhere.

Gupie• 5 years ago

However Blair's electability and legacy was fatally damage, and when Cameron next wanted to go to war, to bomb Syria, parliament did not allow it.

wolverine87622• 5 years ago

Take the 2003 protests against the Iraq war for example - 3 million protested in Rome, 1.5 million in Madrid, 1 million in London, and millions more across the west. What happened? They went to war based on lies anyway. It's always the same.

The flaw is applying a binary metric: It's not that protestors don't have either absolute power or no power. Protests have influence. Those protests limited the scope of the war and their governments' involvement. Imagine the world if nobody protested, the free hand governments would have had if nobody cared. I can tell you that in my community, the George Floyd protests put political leaders in a position to respond immediately or be swept away by the next vote.

The Iraq War was conducted while constantly pushing back against world opinion. The cost in political capital was high; those protests imposed real costs and real limitations on the leaders. That's how democracy works (though not only through protest).

Whenever you think protests are futile, imagine the world without them. Then get out there and contribute - the world doesn't need people sitting on the sidelines, criticizing. Each person who shows up demonstrates to many others - people who see them, people who know them - that they too have the power, can act, and have a responsibility to do it.

justshowpost2• 5 years ago

war based on lies

That's quite thick agenda for these millions, heh.

mschuster91• 5 years ago

The second mistake is assuming that most (putatively) peaceful protests in the western world are actually the impetus for political change, and not just part of a legitimization strategy for political changes that were already in development before the protest started.

This "but protests must be peaceful!!!" attitude that persists in Western countries and grew in popularity with the '68 generation is actually reproduced by (mostly conservative) politicians these days, as it's easy to simply ignore a peaceful protest.

Just compare worker protection and social security regulations in France (where unions and people literally fight, to wide approval in society and media) vs Germany (where the population is kept docile and any protest that even only looks non-peaceful gets decried in media).

csomar3• 5 years ago

the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective.

The protest itself is not effective, or at least doesn't change the current day order. But it signals an important opposition to a certain rule that a smart politician should pick up.

The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerable to bad PR, so generating a bunch of sympathetic imagery (photos of student protestors getting gassed or whatever) might not actually be useful in swaying political outcomes.

You are wrong. China does care a lot for its image. More than you'd expect. China does give a bunch of money to improve its image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_foreign_aid); certainly less than the US but it is sizable and also smarter. They are building popular stuff (like hospitals) in the middle of nowhere and making lots of fanfare about it as well as putting their flags. And no, these are not loans, these are grants (ie: free money!).

The coronavirus and current US-led media campaign did damage the Chinese reputation a lot. But here is where you might be lost: China doesn't really care about the educated western population and the western population in general.

The second mistake is assuming that most (putatively) peaceful protests in the western world are actually the impetus for political change, and not just part of a legitimization strategy for political changes that were already in development before the protest started.

It's a process. Protests are a manifestation of discontent, and are a good indicator when no transparent voting mechanism is in place. It gives the US good leverage against China by weighing discontent. Sure, it makes no changes, but that's because we live in a distorted world where democracy for small countries is possible.

Democratically, independent and small countries like New Zealand are only possible today because of the world order the US has placed. Otherwise, there is nothing stopping China from walking to New Zealand and declaring it New China.

dumb122412• 5 years ago

Democratically, independent and small countries like New Zealand are only possible today because of the world order the US has placed. Otherwise, there is nothing stopping China from walking to New Zealand and declaring it New China.

This sounds a bit outlandish to me. I respect what your sub message might be but in real world scenario it's quite exaggerated.

dumb122412• 5 years ago

I'm wondering why most of the comments here are not discussing the content of the article but rather the general HK protest.

Most of people in China understand the value of rule of law. And we never deny that the environment there is far from any democratic western society. But if you read the article and are the readers of the mentioned media outlets you would agree a bit that those are a little dubious (Post852, Winandmac Media etc, Apple Daily included). It's definitely not good to have a sweeping ban, but pretending all non-mainland chinese media is pro democracy and liberal values and not populist (sometimes provocative and radicalised) to attract viewers is a little naive in my humble opinion.

WastingMyTime892• 5 years ago

So just to be clear you actually believe that media being populist justify abitrary detentions, jailing people from indefinite duration without ever putting them to trial while threatening them with life in prison if not straight murder?

wolverine87622• 5 years ago

But if you read the article and are the readers of the mentioned media outlets you would agree a bit that those are a little dubious (Post852, Winandmac Media etc, Apple Daily included). It's definitely not good to have a sweeping ban, but pretending all non-mainland chinese media is pro democracy and liberal values and not populist (sometimes provocative and radicalised) to attract viewers is a little naive in my humble opinion.

Well, you can express your point of view, but don't tell everyone else what they think. If imperfection were a sin to deny rights and power, then who would have rights and power? Certainly not the Chinese government!

_tik_• 5 years ago

There are many reasons other than the choice of peaceful strategy. The movement doesn't have any clear achievable goals, lacks united leadership. There is a strong opinion the movement is designed to fail. The real goal of the movement is to humiliate CPP. An the violence stage of the protest. My HK relatives, political refuges from cultural revolution time, are more scared of the protester than CCP.

bsanr22• 5 years ago

This is why I scoff at the people criticizing the BLM protests and associated riots. We should have learned this lesson wrt the anti-war protests during the Bush years: when the person whose actions you need to change are absolutely intransigent, attempting to convince them directly is not an effective strategy, because they will not be convinced. Instead, the most immediate goal must be to liquify the set status quo; changes can be insisted upon more easily when the illusion of stability has been broken and there is less friction.

Marginalized people usually serve as a sink for the rage and violence of people who are in power but are still bitter because an imperfect world remains perfect. Usually, these marginalized people simply eat those injuries, protecting society's stability. With riots; with graphic images of police beatings and murders plastered on TV and the internet; with infrastructure shutdowns; with resumed talk of things like police reform, social justice, and reparations, these people instead conserve and then redirect that rage and violence back out to the larger society to deal with. It's understandable that many do not like this disturbance of their peace, but that's kind of the point. And BLM et al. are not manufacturing it out of whole cloth; it's simply the intolerable oppression of an imperfect society, visited upon people who are used to shuffling it off onto lessers.

answerretards• 5 years ago

This comment made me very very mad, very strongly strongly to the point I made this account even though I don't usually comment on HN.

You must be one example of somebody that live mostly in peaceful democratic society. You've never seen actual blood, war, limbs, raped girls, beheaded people? heads rolling and kicked down like a soccer ball? girls with vaginas stuck by sticks? I've seen a few, and it happened in a city, in.a.fucking.riot You wanna know how many people died? 1500 fucking people you fucking idiot. In a big fucking city. The army had to come down to quell the riot.

BLM can protest peacefully, otherwise we normal people don't give a fuck about their message is. There are many people out there than just Black people. A lot of immigrants for example, don't generally give a shit about what happened this past 2 years about BLM this BLM that. They just want their stores not to be burned by these uncivilized people. No they don't have fucking insurance you fucking idiot.

BLM can protest peacefully, otherwise be prepared to be gunned down. I don't care who he/she/it. Travel my property, burn my property, get ready for a lead in the head.

I am not a Trump supporter, and as a matter of fact a Democrat, voted for Biden. but I'll lick Trump's boots and vote hard hard hard right if it means that I can prevent of defunding the police and keep the order.

The politicians that do not condemn the riot and supporting defunding the police are simply out there for political points. They need to go down!

RobertKerans2• 5 years ago

It's not Western though. You're right in that it generally doesn't work, but it's well known to only work in specific circumstances. Yes it's part of a political strategy, but the point of it is to demonstrate dignity, and given a state that is susceptible to shame, that greatly aids in the empowerment of blocs within the state to enact change.

In retrospect, yes, it's fallacious thinking from the protesters if they thought they could successfully press for change just via the protests. But that's in retrospect, previously it might have worked. But as you suggest, the Chinese state is in a position where it doesn't have to care and will happily exterminate the protests. Only answer then is violence, but in this situation the only actors capable of that are other states. In which case, peaceful protest, not fighting back seems the logically correct thing to do -- the protestors require the moral high ground and to focus attention on the issue, which they did very successfully. Whether that has much effect -- probably not, China is ridiculously powerful, but they couldn't do much more (I mean, taken to Gandhian logical extremes, recognition of the failure of the non-violent protest should have been followed mass suicide of all the protesters, which is grotesque but hey, that's Gandhi for you).

derefr• 5 years ago

The logical extreme here, I would think, is mass organized emigration to other countries who have offered to willingly take in HK political refugees.

tablespoon9• 5 years ago

In retrospect, yes, it's fallacious thinking from the protesters if they thought they could successfully press for change just via the protests. But that's in retrospect, previously it might have worked.

Not exactly, it actually did work at least once. Protests in HK had been previously successful at stopping a national security law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_(Legislative.... The official protest demands were actually pretty modest, and I think even the biggest one (a fully elected government) is actually called for in the Basic Law.

But as you suggest, the Chinese state is in a position where it doesn't have to care and will happily exterminate the protests.

It's worth noting that one of the protest anthems was "Do You Hear the People Sing?" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Hear_the_People_Sing%3F) from Les Misérables, which is (in part) about a crushed pro-Democracy movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_ABC, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Rebellion).

wolverine87622• 5 years ago

fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective.

First, it's not 'westerners'. Democracy and peaceful protest are embraced throughout the world: All of North and South America, with few exceptions; almost all of Europe; Japan, S. Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines to extents, India, countries in Africa, etc. And protests happen outside democracy and go back long before it. Gandhi was protesting in a dictatorship; MLK was too, in many ways (it was in many ways a dictatorship for African-Americans).

But what an odd world we have become, where people go out of their way to tell each other these things contrary to what is all around them. As a simple example, look at all the policing and legal reforms, all the social changes, that have happened in response to the George Floyd protests. The Arab Spring happened not long before that. People invest enormous amounts of time and effort in changing public opinion, and causing/stopping protest. Despair seems like a dumb, unpleasant trend.

The people in power want you to think you are powerless; it obviously suits them for you to believe it. Similarly, to suppress votes they say 'your vote doesn't count' - something I've encountered in poor communities. The power is actually yours. History is filled with protests changing the world.

Governments have power only from the consent of the governed. Like the fiat power behind currency, the government's power comes from people giving them that authority - the government says you must do X, and people choose to listen. They don't have nearly enough other power to survive without it, including - or especially including - non-democratic governments. If nobody listens to them, who are they? Just some people talking (ironically, similar to what authoritarians try to say about protestors - nobody listens). What is their authority? And if people don't go to work, if the streets are filled with protest, then it affects many more interests than those in office. You can see why some in power try to spread this idea that you have none.

Protests also demonstrate and galvanize public opinion. People sitting home and feeling alone and powerless are no threat; other people telling them that that they are powerless are ideal. When people see others taking action, when they see they are not alone, then they act.

Sure, life is more complicated than that. Few things happen only because of a protest, but that's just because the world is too complicated for simple solutions. But to say protests aren't a huge factor is really a fantasy of authority, and they push it for a reason. The world is yours.

betaby• 5 years ago

"Who control the past controls the future". Same is happening in Belarus at that moment. Most popular portal "TUT.BY" is removing everything from their Telegram channel.

elevenoh4• 5 years ago

But the rate of increasing connectivity between a population has never been greater.

I wouldn't bet against the trend toward net-freedom.

someperson2• 5 years ago

The best way to put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party and help pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong (and the reduce Uygher genocide) is to avoid buying Made in China goods where possible.

This means buying Western, Korean and Japanese brands that aren't manufactured in China. Eg, a Samsung phone over Apple (made in Vietnam than Made in China), a Western Digital hard drive (made in Thailand) etc.

There are an increasing number alternatives to Made in China, across all product lines as manufacturing moves to Vietnam (and the rest of South East Asia), India, Bangladesh etc as wages in China rise.

tablespoon9• 5 years ago

The best way to put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party and help pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong (and the reduce Uygher genocide) is to avoid buying Made in China goods where possible.

Decoupling could be helpful on several fronts, but it's not going to happen via individualist boycotts. Those are useless, and just too many things are made in China without realistic alternatives. If it's going to happen, it'll be through increasing tariffs (preferably slowly over time) and other government policy.

someperson2• 5 years ago

Yes, individual boycotts are not the only way.

Government policy is certainly required too. Both punitive (increasing tariffs), requiring made outside China sourcing, and also investing in supply chains outside of China.

Also there actually aren't that many things made in China that don't have some kind of alternative. Production is moving out of China across all sectors, not because of politics but due to increasing wages.

2xpress3• 5 years ago

Individual boycotts go together with individual voting for better politicians who will build better policies regarding PRC.

boomboomsubban2• 5 years ago

I don't buy the argument that economic sanctions/boycotts lead to overthrown governments, but I'll assume it does.

The result of that strategy would be crippling poverty for hundreds of millions of people, with results likely to last for decades.

dillondoyle5• 5 years ago

On the other hand opening up economically to China didn't bring the Democracy we envisioned either.

2xpress3• 5 years ago

Economic sanctions and boycotts lead to overthrow of governments all the time, that's how USSR collapsed.

And when hundreds of millions of people are living in what is effectively just a very large concentration camp that can harvest anybody's organs at anytime then that's the worst kind of "crippling poverty" there is.

koonsolo2• 5 years ago

I agree, just look at North Korea.

dismantlethesun3• 5 years ago

This policy would simply shift the economic gains of China to India and Africa.

Hundreds of millions of people living under more palatable governments are currently being denied the chance to lift themselves out of poverty because the default choice for investment is China.

2xpress3• 5 years ago

I don't know why the parent is getting voted down, not buying PRC is good advice. Cheap slave labor is the main factor that allowed PRC to grow into a superpower. Ironically, they developed using Taiwan as their model (with the Taiwanese corporate helping -- Foxconn).

Since the tariffs a lot of goods that used to be made in PRC are now (at least assembled) made in Vietnam. I personally regularly pay more just to avoid PRC goods. And PRC goods only seem like a bargain at first glance. I only buy PRC when there does not appear to be an alternative, but it still feels shameful and dirty.

I only wish that the government keeps raising the tariffs on PRC higher and higher. It is truly a shame it was not done immediately post Tienanmen Square massacre.

sumedh3• 5 years ago

Cheap slave labor is the main factor that allowed PRC to grow into a superpower.

Developed countries used the same model as well.

karmasimida3• 5 years ago

Trump tried to raise 25% tariffs on all Chinese goods, and that is about the most effective way to implement the boycott with scale that can't be matched.

And it didn't work really. China's export to US and the world is at all-time high, and guess who is paying for those tariffs?

tablespoon9• 5 years ago

And it didn't work really. China's export to US and the world is at all-time high, and guess who is paying for those tariffs?

Trump had the kernel of the right idea, but the actual goal in his mind was stupid (get a better "deal") and his execution sloppy and haphazard.

A better implementation would be to ratchet up tariffs slowly, and send the certain message: "policy has changed, go all in towards adjusting your supply chains now or be fucked."

_carbyau_• 5 years ago

In this article, I was surprised to read that anyone thought "freedom of the press" still existed in HK at all.

Once they took the boss of Apple Daily it was pretty clear. HK is governed by one system.

gyzmau• 5 years ago

It is, but what ramp up here is that they arrested people for having published opinion in the opinion section of newspapers hence why newspaper are removing their archive.

est4• 5 years ago

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/how-fake-persona-laid-...

akomtu3• 5 years ago

Taiwan is next, in 10 years.

est4• 5 years ago

Taiwan was like this 40 years ago.

koonsolo2• 5 years ago

Taiwan is not easy to invade.

bpodgursky• 5 years ago

Neither was Ukraine.

robjan2• 5 years ago

The government of Taiwan does not report into the Chinese Central Government like in Hong Kong. It's controlled by an independent government on disputed land.

akomtu3• 5 years ago

What matters is CCP wants it. The disputed land status will be used as a pretense. The US won't dare to start a war and will write off the loss. Other countries won't even dare to comment on the situation.

etaioinshrdlu2• 5 years ago

If you are in HK and you're able, I'd recommend leaving and bring as much family with you as you can. It's not going to get better there, at this point.

elevenoh4• 5 years ago

Vancouver, for one, is bracing itself for the post-protest/covid influx of hong kongers.

I love seeing a lotta freedom fighting hong kong folks in vancouver.

Seattle3503• 5 years ago

Does it seem weird to anyone else that a foreigner would say this? Surely someone else living there would understand their own situation better.

smcl2• 5 years ago

Yeah I mean they're not wrong but I cannot picture who this is aimed at. Every resident of Hong Kong will already be acutely aware of the situation and will likely be weighing up the options at their disposal.

inglor_cz3• 5 years ago

Looking at memoirs of Central European Jews in the late 1930s, lots of them were unwilling to admit that it won't end with "Jewish only" post office hours. Things like real property weigh you down and lead you to wishful thinking.

We all generally underestimate risks of many types of behavior. For example, sedentary behavior is pretty bad for your health, but how many smart commenters on HN find a reason not to exercise?

tablespoon9• 5 years ago

Does it seem weird to anyone else that a foreigner would say this? Surely someone else living there would understand their own situation better.

Yeah, it should be phrased as a welcome (e.g. come here, we want to take you), not a warning (flee now).

nine_k2• 5 years ago

The most interesting idea I heard about the hand-over of HK is that UK should have offered a UK permanent resident (or even a citizen) status to all HK residents, once China started the pressure.

Of course, HK's population is 11% of UK, not a small deal, likely such a bill won't pass anyway. But I also see it as a missed opportunity to bring in some world-class human capital.

calcifer• 5 years ago

BNO citizens (i.e most HK people born before the handover) can get a UK visa [1] with a direct route to citizenship.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/british-national-overseas-bno-visa

Lio• 5 years ago

They can now. At the time this was not offered because the CCP was so against it.

In order to get the 1 country 2 systems deal the UK had to shelve the idea at the time. It was a massive gamble but it was probably worth trying for a peaceful hand over.

Since the CCP have broken their side of the agreement there's no longer a reason not to offer BNO citizens a route to UK citizenship now.

garmaine2• 5 years ago

They have. At least for the HK residents which predate the '97 handover and therefore have British Overseas National status. This is about 1/3 of the HK population which is now allowed to settle and work in the UK on a track towards permanent residency. If they can get the permission to leave, that is.

londons_explore• 5 years ago

It is notable that very few seem to have taken this path.

Yet many seem to be protesting, despite it really looking like they have hardly any chance of their protests getting anything they want.

There must be more to the story that I'm not seeing...

strogonoff7• 5 years ago

I like the idea floated by an acquaintance of mine, which sounds more or less like “the British could just give us some island they don’t need, and we’d build another city there”.

sumedh3• 5 years ago

the British could just give us some island they don’t need

What about the people who are already living on that island, what if they dont want foreigners?

Bayart2• 5 years ago

HK is wealthy because of where it is. Good luck trying to replicate that in the Falklands or on some rock in the Caribbeans.

bhawks3• 5 years ago

Empty words and token sanctions are not going to stop the CCP's blatant takeover of HK and trashing of the '1 country 2 systems' agreement.

Real action - offer US citizenship to Hong Kong era that want it. Then go recognize the Republic of Taiwan as an independent country.

Unfortunately the CCP is probably right in their assumption that our politicians are to greedy and spineless to make anything beyond a soundbite gesture. They'll keep expanding their borders, putting minorities in concentration camps, forced organ harvesting and researching interesting new viruses.

We're all complicit, sickening really.

lucian19002• 5 years ago

The local government in Taiwan still claims all of China as its territory, why would they want to be an independent country with only one island?

bhawks3• 5 years ago

First off disputed borders are a very common occurrence in geo politics. It rarely prevents country C from recognizing both country A and country B. Outside of the Taiwan case I can't think of a situation where a border claim dispute effectively locked a country out of nearly all international forums (or crippled it to the point of having no significant voice). The situation is very unique to say the least, but let's be frank it is dysfunctional.

Secondly reunification by any method along any short or long time frame has only a small amount of public support in Taiwan. (Recent polling: https://jamestown.org/program/taiwanese-public-opinion-on-ch...). It has been on a downward trend for quite awhile. Anyone suggesting Taiwan is going to make a forceful play to establish Taiwanese control over mainland china is beyond delusional. Very sadly the likelihood of the inverse happening grows higher day by day (both in CCP leaders talking points and military displays).

Tldr I chose the words Republic of Taiwan very deliberately. :).

rscoots• 5 years ago

offer US citizenship to Hong Kong era that want it.

Can someone fill me in on how this would causally improve the prospects for Hong Kong's freedom?

tablespoon9• 5 years ago

> offer US citizenship to Hong Kong era that want it.
Can someone fill me in on how this would causally improve the prospects for Hong Kong's freedom?

It would improve the prospects for individual Hongkongers' freedom, but it would certainly doom it in Hong Kong itself, and speed its assimilation into mainland China.

Asylum policies seem like a tough call sometimes: you help individuals at the cost tightening the grip of those who oppressed them. Who knows, maybe the PRC could end up democratic in 50 years if enough pro-democracy Hongkongers manage to worm themselves into the PRC political system and find themselves in a position to exploit some future opportunity.

mrwww• 5 years ago

The CCP does not represent Chinese people and its sickening that they are so hell bent on controlling all of them.

Dah00n9• 5 years ago

You can swap out CCP/China in your comment with pretty much any government/country though.

AnimalMuppet2• 5 years ago

For all its flaws, the US government does not try to control US citizens to the degree that the CCP tries to control Chinese citizens.

justshowpost2• 5 years ago

According to Chairman Xi speech, Taiwan is next target.

HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

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